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CSP part of ending environmental and agricultural battles
by Jeff Schahczenski
(Sunday, May 9, 2004 -- CropChoice guest commentary) -- In article after article we are constantly bombarded with issues that seem to pit the environmental and agricultural communities against each other. For instance, in a recent editorial, Steve Appel of the
Washington Farm Bureau laments the unfair loss to family farmers of the
use of certain pesticides within 60 to 300 feet of salmon-bearing
waters. This federal court order will have significant impacts on
farmers and ranchers whose property happens to be located near these streams and rivers. However, today I am lamenting the slow politicized and bureaucratic destruction of an important conservation program that could be providing sustainable solutions that would end these
unnecessary and destructive “fish versus farming” battles.
The Conservation Security Program (CSP) enacted into law in the 2002
Farm Bill, offers one of the best opportunities to reward farmers and
ranchers for the environmentally sustainable ways they currently farm
and ranch. If fully supported and enacted, CSP could be motivating even
higher achievements of agriculture conservation. This would ultimately
end the need to sue farmers and ranchers to force compliance with
necessary and legally mandated environmental quality standards.
But the promise of the CSP is in jeopardy. Last week, almost two years
to the day after its creation, USDA Secretary of Agriculture, Ann
Veneman announced an implementation process for the CSP that is so out
of touch with the enabling legislation and its promise, that one
wonder’s why over 18,000 leading citizens even bothered to offer public
comment in its support. The “war” between the environment and
agriculture is perpetuated because we have an administration that simply
won’t listen to its own citizens and agricultural and environmental
leaders, let alone follow the very legislative solutions it enacts.
The CSP provides a “classic” case of why we need to recognize that “the
bureaucracy” is the fourth branch of the federal government. This
“fourth branch” is just as “political” as the other three branches, but
is missing some necessary checks and balances. The common tactics of
this “bureaucratic” branch are obfuscation, delay and outright defiance
of the will of Congress and thereby the will of the people.
The CSP is a simple and revolutionary idea. Instead of providing
financial support to farmers and ranchers who are currently the most
destructive to the production of healthy food and the preservation of
the environment, we reward those who are already meeting high standards
of environmentally sound agriculture. Furthermore, if these same farmers
and ranchers are willing to go beyond their current high standards, the
CSP will reward them even more. The legislation that created the CSP,
provided for a national entitlement program that can maintain and
enhance the highest possible standards for environmentally sound
agriculture. CSP is also “free trade” compliant.
However, immediately upon passage the USDA and the Natural Resource
Conservation Service (NRCS) cried “complexity!” The USDA bureaucrats in
effect said- “ How in the world will we ever be able to determine who
the best agricultural conservationists are, how can we assess the dollar
benefits they provide for the environmental health of society at large
and how can we can possibly figure out how to get them support? This new
CSP implementation will take time.
Two years later the incredible answer devised by USDA is that, to quote
Secretary Veneman, “with 1.8 million potentially eligible producers,
CSP must be focused”. In other words, all 1.8 million farmers and
ranchers in this country are good conservationists and rewarding them
all for the benefits they provide us is really well, just too expensive.
Here the USDA deliberately obscured the meaning of entitlement and
eligibility. False alarms of rising costs raised red flags with the U.S.
Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which further delayed
implementation. While the CSP legislation clearly states that to be
eligible for this program one has to have already “solved” a major
resource problem to a non-degradation level, USDA and OMB seem to think
that every farmer and rancher in the country has done this already! This
is like suggesting for example, that all farmers have controlled soil
erosion at or below the soil loss tolerance level, yet the fact is that
over 100 million acres of cropland currently erode at higher rates
representing hundreds of thousands of producers who would NOT be
eligible for the CSP.
So based on this (deliberate?) confusion, USDA creates more confusion by
suggesting that because of the high expense of supporting the entire
nations’ agriculture community for its benefits to environmental health,
we need to limit our reward system to certain “high priority”
watersheds. We are told by Secretary Veneman that “watersheds are
nature’s boundaries and are a good way to group together producers
working on similar environmental issues”. However, while working on all
watersheds to solve environmental issues related to agriculture may
indeed be sensible, this is really a ruse to limit allocations to
certain watersheds and thus excluding many great conservation farmers
and ranchers from participating. Thus, where you live will matter much
more than your conservation effort. Also, given the incredibly complex
system of picking “priority” watersheds announced by USDA, it appears
that very few of the really best conservation farmers and ranchers will
be rewarded and instead we have a program supporting mediocrity. We will
be spending $38 million dollars before October of this year to reward
not the best of the best, but the so-so average.
Next fiscal year the President has asked for $208 million to continue
the CSP and the Congress has affirmed its desire to maintain CSP as a
fully-funded national entitlement for all eligible farmers and ranchers.
Why can’t the OMB and USDA bureaucracies listen at least to the
President and Congress if not to 18,000 leading concerned citizens? If
we want healthy fish, rivers, food and people, we need to support the
farmers and ranchers best capable of providing it and hopefully get
those who aren’t to follow in their lead. This is broad public
self-interest.
Call the President, call your congressional delegation, call the
Secretary of Agriculture and demand an end to the war between
environment and agriculture by supporting a fully funded Conservation
Security Program that doesn’t exclude most deserving farmers and
ranchers from participating. The CSP need to be implemented in
accordance to the law as passed by Congress and signed by the President.
_____________________________________
Jeff Schaczenski, welcomes your comments. He can be reached at
406-494-8636 or wsawg@ncat.org. More information about the Western Sustainable Agriculture Working Group can be found on-line at http://www.westernsawg.org . | |
